Conductor amperage

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Red Wiggler

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How would you calculate the amperage for a "Diesel Locomotive Cable" that is installed in a conduit. According to the cable manufacturer a 4/0 (copper) Diesel cable is rated at 400 amps, but I am assuming that is a "free air rating". If installed in a conduit I would suspect it would be rated at a lower amperage.
I am unsure how this is calculated.

We would like to use the Diesel Cable in our 800 and 1200 amp Temporary Services. The flexible qualities and the higher amperage ratings would work out well for our purposes. Our temp services are skid mounted, re-useable, and the design has been approved by all of the utilities that we deal with.
 
Diesel Locomotive Cable as such is not a recognized condcutor by the NEC. Most DLO cable is also RHW rated and , in my opinion., you would use that rating for sizing the cable.
 
Dlo

Dlo

augie47 said:
Diesel Locomotive Cable as such is not a recognized condcutor by the NEC. Most DLO cable is also RHW rated and , in my opinion., you would use that rating for sizing the cable.
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So it would not make much sense to put the 4/0 Diesel cable in a conduit if it is going to be rated at 230 amps (75 deg Column). I am looking for the 400 amp rating. (2 riser conduits for an 800 amp service, 3 for a 1200 amp service) This puts me back to wresting in the 600 MCM, or adding more riser conduits (more weight)

Any other ideas?
 
Thats the way I see it. As always, that is obviously just one opinion. Mine are no better than anyone else's. The only advantage is the DLO is flexibility.
You can avoid the weight issue by using AL :smile:
 
The DLO conductor also needs lugs or terminations rated for the amount of strands it

contains, most equipment does not contain such terminations. DLO is mostly used for the

flexiblity not the 'ghost ampere increase', unless used in a locomotive.
 
It's also used on battery racks for UPS systems. Termination specs and amperage ratings of cables are usually supplied by the manufacturer.
 
I have used DLO/RHW for large DC motors because the armature voltage was 700 volts (DLO is rated at at least 1000 volts and some is rated at 2000) and the motor j-box was small, but we used it at the NEC ampacity. The 1500 hp motor took 16 535kcmil cables (8 for positive and 8 for negative). The internal connections in the motor only use 4 4/0 for each polarity.
 
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